


The Moons of Vaamil

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Furry - Fandom, Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, F/F, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gods, Hermaphrodites, Humanoid Animals, Other, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-14
Updated: 2007-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keolah experiments by creating a new world populated by hermaphrodite furries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moons of Vaamil

Light rose from the darkness, and a shimmering sphere appeared from out the Ethereal Plane. Along the globe grew forests and mountains, between them plains and oceans. Circling it in the sky, several moons of vibrant colors and different sizes appeared, and a radiant sun. 

Keolah looked upon her latest work, and she was pleased. The makings of another lovely world for people to inhabit, once she created them as well. Her new position as the Wyld compelled her to create. 

"Keolah, what are you doing?" Hawthorne commented as she appeared nearby, an image of her mortal form floating in space. 

"I'm creating a new world!" Keolah replied. "Isn't it beautiful?" 

"Another one?" Hawthorne said, glancing to the planet and rolling her eyes a bit, sighing. "I'm just going to have to delete this in short order once you forget about it and move on to something more interesting that catches your eye, you know. You've got the attention span of a butterfly on LSD. Just like I ended up having to clean up a lot of the other ill-conceived messes you left around the universe. Whatever possessed you to think a world where people could cast spells by eating watermelons was a good idea?" 

"Hey, it was brilliant and original! You just don't appreciate my creativity." 

"Your 'creativity' usually involves bizarre things no one in their right mind would want to touch with a ten-foot pole," Hawthorne observed. 

"I shall call this great new world, Vaamil!" Keolah declared, waving her hands dramatically. 

"Are the two A's really necessary?" Hawthorne said wryly. 

"And now, I shall create the intelligent and beautiful inhabitants of this new realm!" Keolah went on. 

"No elves," Hawthorne said. "Not elves again." 

"Elves!" Keolah said. 

"I hate to say this, but there's nothing original or creative about elves anymore." 

"Oh, fine," Keolah said, sighing. "How about svirfneblin instead?" 

"I can't even pronounce that." 

"Bah. How about I just toss in a bunch of random stuff like I usually do and see what thrives?" 

"Whatever," Hawthorne said, shaking her head slowly and rolling her eyes. 

"However, I'm going to need to place a time field and a ward over the place so that it can develop on its own without outside interference until I deem it ready for contact with the outside universe." 

"Good, makes it all the easier to delete it if nobody important gives a damn about it," Hawthorne said with a smirk. She seemed to be enjoying her new position as the Wyrm entirely too much, too. "I still attribute Serriya's survival to all the Elkandu who felt like going there and playing gods." 

"What about the Pattern Realm?" Keolah asked. "It survived, and nobody even knew about it either for the longest time!" 

"Random chance. And if you'd let Zuna Taike's actions stand, it wouldn't have either. But fine, go populate the poor world with some screwy mutants. I don't care." 

"I know! I'll use the Chimerae. They'll do nicely. The Elkandu didn't take to the idea very well, well, besides Harmony of course, but they shall be perfect here if they are the only type of being around. A great innate diversity plus the natural ability to breed with any creature, and they're all hermaphrodites!" 

"I'll admit the Chimerae were at least an original, if mind-bendingly bizarre, idea," Hawthorne said. 

As Keolah went down to populate the world with Chimerae, Suzcecoz appeared in the space above the planet near Hawthorne and asked, "What's going on here?" She was the third of the new Triat, the Weaver. 

"Keolah's latest stupid idea," Hawthorne told her. "She has made this new world and is populating it with fucked up hermaphrodites. Want to take bets on how long it'll be before she forgets about the place and abandons it?" 

"Interesting," Suzcecoz mused, peering thoughtfully at the bright new world. 

"Oh, come on, don't tell me _you're_ going to stick your finger in the pie too." Hawthorne sighed again. "I still think this is an amazingly stupid idea." 

"Hey, don't be so down. Look on it as an opportunity to practice and get a better feel for your newfound abilities," Suzcecoz said. "Of the three of us I'd say you probably need it the most, considering we were doing about the same thing on whatever the scale for centuries beforehand. You, however, could really use a chance to come into your own as a power of destruction and corruption." 

"Fine," Hawthorne said. "Fine. I believe I shall do just that." A faint grin quirked across her face as she considered it, on how to bring her own touch to this foolish, ill-conceived world. Yes, she thought to herself, this would be good practice indeed. 

* * *

Over the mountains near the village of Kar Davnas, the mottled purple moon rose into the sky. Avrien, it was called, the largest of the moons of the young world of Vaamil. 

Vree looked to the sky, yawning and stretching as sie woke from hir nap. It was late evening, and the sun was just setting, which suited hir just fine, as sie always did prefer the night. Sie looked down the snow-covered slope toward the village, plumes of smoke arising from amongst its frost-lined structures between the protective wooden walls surrounding it. 

Hir own thick black fur stood out in sharp contrast to the winter snows around Kar Davnas. It had been a gift of hir second father, Martek, although that had been about the only trait sie had inherited from hir. 

"Vree!" called a voice. Vree turned to see hir younger brother standing on the slope looking up at hir, hands on hir hips. "What are you doing out here? Mother wanted you back at the village before sunset!" 

Vree sighed and rolled hir dark eyes. "Oh, Klisil, you _know_ I prefer to be awake when the sun isn't in the sky." Klisil's mother was Vree's first father, Kropien, and hir father was Vree's mother, Nivas. 

"Kropien doesn't care," Klisil insisted. "Sie wants you back there right this instant or it'll be trouble, mark my words!" 

Vree sighed and said, "Fine." Sie brushed off hir fur compulsively before heading back toward the village, looking up toward the sky as sie went. The sky was full of moons, big and small, and sie murmured to hirself part of the song they recited about the moons. 

_Nine are the moons of Vaamil:_  
Avrien and Tilien  
Naskor and Relikor  
Zili, Kili, Kaminor  
Keriar and Treen.

Back at the village, Kropien was waiting for them inside the lodge, and sie looked most displeased judging by hir expression and the position of hir ears. Sie lifted hir muzzle to look sharply toward the children as they entered. 

"Vree!" Kropien snapped, pointing a claw toward a spot on the floor nearby, indicating for hir to sit. Vree grumbled a bit and took a seat reluctantly. "I have told you never to be outside the village after dark. Why do you continue to refuse to listen to me?" 

"But, Father," Vree protested. "I like the night. I always feel more comfortable out when the moons and stars are in the sky. The sun glares on me and hurts my eyes when it's too bright." 

Kropien sighed. "Too much like your second father, you are," sie said, shaking hir head. "No. I will allow no child of mine to fall to that darkness." 

"I have never seen anything so terrible out in the night to warrant your warnings," Vree replied. "The light of the moons on the snow is quite beautiful." 

"You are too young, Vree," Kropien said with a sigh. "You do not understand that which we must all guard against. Do you not know that your second father abandoned us and betrayed us all, for the sake of the whispers in the darkness?" 

Vree looked down to the floor quietly. "And you're afraid I'd end up like hir, are you? That I might end up wanting to follow hir, wherever it was that sie wandered off to? What if I might say that I had wanted to?" 

"Vree, no. You don't understand what you are saying." Kropien climbed to hir paws and paced about the room nervously. "I have told you time and again of the dangers which we face, but still you do not listen. I have told you of the Three and how they created and shaped this world. Did you listen to a word that I said about them? Tell me, Vree. Who are the Three?" 

"Maker, Shaper, and Scourge," Vree repeated hir lessons diligently. "The Maker created the world and everything and everyone in it. The Shaper brought order to the world and inspired us to create and build ourselves. And the Scourge wishes to corrupt us all so that sie may destroy the world." 

"Correct," Kropien said, nodding. "Martek, however, chose to turn hir back upon us and follow the foul teachings of the Scourge not long after you were born. Sie even attempted to abduct you at least once, for what dark purpose I dare not imagine." 

Vree looked quietly to the floor, leaving hir own opinion on the matter unvoiced, as sie was sure that Kropien would not tolerate further proclamations that sie had wished Martek had succeeded. Instead sie merely sighed and said, "Yes, Father, you are right of course. I'm sorry." 

"Good," Kropien said. "Now, go to your room and do not emerge from it until dawn, do you understand?" 

"Yes, Father," Vree muttered, and slunk off to hir own tiny room. It was little more than a cramped closet with a bedroom and a chamber pot, and one high window letting in the purple light of Avrien. 

Sie wasn't tired at all after hir nap, however, and sie found herself staring up at the window longingly, and wondered if sie might be able to fit through it. Sie figured it was worth a shot if it would get hir away from here, however. Vree awkwardly climbed onto the bed and toward the window, gripping the window frame with hir claws. It took some wiggling and working to get through, but after several minutes sie managed to squeeze out and drop lightly to the ground, peering about to make sure nobody had seen hir. 

Vree darted away from the lodge and toward the edge of the village. Sie didn't quite make it to the wooden wall around Kar Davnas before sie heard a voice say, "Hey, where are you going?" 

Startled, Vree turned to see one of the villagers staring at hir in puzzlement, a barely-adult herbivore with antlers. "Nowhere. Leave me alone." 

"You're not supposed to go outside the village after dark," the herbivore insisted, reaching over toward hir. 

"I said leave me alone!" Vree snapped, slashing out with hir claws and slicing into the person's long neck. 

"Agh!" The herbivore tumbled to the ground, red blood pouring out and staining hir white fur and the snow. 

"Shit," Vree muttered, staring for a moment at the body. Sie hadn't intended to hurt hir. Sie'd only meant to intimidate hir into leaving hir alone. If the villagers found them here like this, they'd want Vree's head for sure. 

In something of a panic, sie darted for the nearest section of wall, digging hir claws into the wood to climb up and over it before anyone else caught hir. Vree dropped down on the other side of the wall, landing in the snow with a soft whump, and scurried off into the forest at random away from the village. 

After Vree had gone some ways, sie realized that they could easily follow hir tracks in the snow, so sie decided it best to throw them off hir trail by climbing into the trees and changing direction. Off through the wilderness and away from the village, Vree scrambled on well into the night, hoping that sie would lose anyone that might try to pursue hir. Finally sie stopped to rest some ways off by a chilly mountain stream, bending over to take a drink of the frigid water. 

Sie realized a bit dejectedly that sie was truly on hir own here, and that sie had no idea where sie might be able to find hir father. But at least sie was free of Kropien's foolish rules, even though sie did feel terrible about accidentally killing that person back at the village. Although Vree had no food with hir, sie knew how to hunt and figured sie could feed hirself off the non-sentient herbivores of the forests. And meanwhile, sie would have to avoid anyone from Kar Davnas trying to find hir, as well as any larger predators that might want to eat hir. 

The nine moons silently rolled by overhead, casting their variegated light upon the winter snows. 

* * *

Vree survived alone in the wilderness for months, scarcely believing that there could such vast and empty expanses where no people lived. Sie wandered far from hir home, far from Kar Davnas, to places where the snows came rarely and the air was warmer. After several months of wandering, Vree feared that sie was lost and that sie might never see speaking beings again. 

However, one day, it was they who finally found hir, rather than the other way around. Sie woke up one evening to find hirself surrounded by various people dressed in rough furs and leather where they were dressed at all. Some of them were tantalizingly familiar to hir, while others sie had never seen before in hir life. 

"Well, lookie here, it's finally woken up," one of them said, grinning toothily and looking down at hir with yellow eyes looking out from mottled brown fur. "You should be more careful about where you decide to sleep, cub. And to pay more attention to what's going on around you." 

Sie reached down and grabbed Vree around hir neck hard enough that sie could feel the predator's claws through hir fur. "What are you doing? Let me go!" Vree protested, gasping in surprise. 

"I don't think so, little lost cub," sie said with a dark grin. "You're awfully far from any villages. Does anyone even know you're missing? I think not. Anyone could do absolutely anything to you out here, and no one will miss you." 

Vree panicked, unable to hold down the raw terror, and set hir tail and ears into a submissive expression. "Please let me go. I'll do whatever you want of me. Just please don't hurt me..." 

The predator looked at hir calculatingly for a moment, then gave a soft snort and released hir. Vree let out a heavy sigh of relief and practically dropped to the ground. "Fine, you wish to submit to the great Narvi then? You'll know your proper place, until you earn better, cub." 

Vree cowered in fear and looked to the ground. "Yes, Master Narvi," sie murmured with a soft sigh. "I will submit to you. My name is Vree." 

"Fine," Narvi muttered. "How old are you, Vree?" 

"Seventeen," Vree replied quietly, still looking to Narvi's feet sheepishly. 

"Old enough," Narvi said. Sie reached down and pulled out a strip of leather that had been hanging from hir belt, and fixed it around Vree's neck. "The collar means you're mine now. You do as I say. Come along now." 

Vree followed along as Narvi and the others led hir off, wondering quietly to hirself just what sie'd gotten hirself into here. 

* * *

It had been several hundred years since the creation of Vaamil, at least on a local time frame, while only a matter of days had passed outside. Nonetheless, it had given Suzcecoz a good chance to think about things and consider the essence of the problem. 

There were severe inherent flaws with how the universe was set up, right down to the Void and the Ethereal. And Keolah and Hawthorne, frankly, were not improving matters much. Even Shazmar was highly questionable at times, even if he generally had some point to what he was doing that most people could not fathom because it seemed like madness to them. Perhaps it was, in a way. His latest scheme hadn't helped things at all, and had only screwed things up further. But perhaps, she could think, maybe his point in doing it was to spur her into doing something about it. 

Well, to the Abyss with it. She was going to do something about it, whether he wanted her to or not. She didn't really care too much what he did. If he demoted her again, she'd just have more spare time to put toward working on her latest tech projects. Not a big deal, as she was hardly in this for the power anyway. 

First, was the matter of Keolah and Hawthorne. What did she really need them for? She already had Ayande to balance her out. Ayande was Yang to her Yin. The thought of that faintly brought to mind the Kuei-jin, Warui, whom she had become acquainted with centuries ago. Keolah and Hawthorne, however, might have their purpose and uses, provided they were more tightly controlled and didn't just keep running off willy-nilly to do whatever they felt like at the moment. Fortunately, however, they were easily manipulated, even as she had convinced Hawthorne with a few words to come to Vaamil and practice her own skills. 

But there was more to what she had in mind than simply manipulating them, and she proceeded to call them forth into the Ethereal Plane near Vaamil, and they came promptly, appearing in their usual visual forms before her. She stood and looked over them thoughtfully and said, "This has been an interesting experiment, and it has brought forth quite a number of revelations. But it's time to end it." 

"Oh, can I destroy the planet now?" Hawthorne asked a bit too eagerly. 

"No, Hawthorne," Suzcecoz said impatiently. "But Keolah isn't going to go around making anymore pointless planets for no reason, either." 

"Oh, well, that's okay then," Hawthorne said. "But still. This was a stupid idea." 

Keolah snorted softly. "But hermaphrodites are the best..." 

Suzcecoz sighed. "Enough of this crap. We need better organization here if we're going to get this universe in order. Hawthorne, I do hope you've got some idea what you're supposed to be doing after all that, because we're turning off the time field now." 

"I'm doing better!" Hawthorne insisted. 

"I'm going to put you two under my jurisdiction now, however," Suzcecoz said. "Then maybe we can get something accomplished here." 

"Can you do that, though?" Keolah said, puzzled. "I thought we three were supposed to be equals." 

Suzcecoz smirked a bit at her. It was Ayande's force of will which brought her the strength of dominance in this case, otherwise she doubted she'd ever have considered such a thing. "Yes, Keo, I can," she replied with a dark grin. "Things change, and the universe changes, and it's about time that a new order was set into place here." 

"Wait, does this involve kinky sex?" Hawthorne asked. 

Suzy sighed and said, "Yes, Hawthorne. I'll tie the two of you up and bring out the whip. So you had better submit to my every desire." 

"Oh, okay, sounds good to me," Hawthorne replied. 

Keolah grinned thoughtfully and said, "Mmm, yes, that sounds fun." 

Suzy smirked faintly and began to draw upon her power to shift the threads of the Pattern ever so slightly. She had not figured that this would be particularly difficult, and poised her toward the position of dominance over the universe. "Very well," she said, letting her voice take on an eerie tone. "Do you agree to serve me, and to obey my every command? Do you acknowledge me as your true Mistress?" 

"Oh, yes, definitely," Hawthorne said, grinning broadly and clearly still thinking more about sex than the real implications of it. 

Keolah, however, was more thoughtful and hesitant at the tone, but after a moment, she said, "Alright. You probably have a better idea on how to keep things organized than I do anyway. Maybe you'll be able to better direct my creative efforts so that I'm not constantly abandoning one project or another..." 

"Then so be it," Suzcecoz said in an echoing voice, drawing forth the threads to bind them to that. The pattern shifted, and she could feel a clearly perceptible increase in her own power as it did so, as the two of them submitted to their agreement. 

"I do hope you know what you're doing, though..." Keolah said softly as she felt the threads fall into place. 

"Very much so," Suzcecoz replied in her normal voice again. "I have plans, you see, and the two of you are going to help me to achieve that. Between us, we shall change the universe. In some ways it will be how it had been before things became so screwed up and damaged. In other ways, however, it will be entirely different, of a vision of my own." 

"Hey, where's the sex?" Hawthorne said, frowning a bit. 

"You shall have it, if you are obedient and do well," Suzcecoz promised, grinning a bit. 

Hawthorne smiled broadly and said, "Okay, what do we have to do first?" 

"First off," Suzy warned. "Remember that you are _mine_ now. I will be most displeased if I catch you chasing after others and doing things for them in exchange for sexual favors. You will do as I wish, or I will punish you greatly." It was more or less Ayande speaking, really, and while she wouldn't generally go in for such sort of dominance, she knew it would get the proper response from Hawthorne. 

"Yes, Mistress," Hawthorne assured her happily. 

"In what ways are we going to change the universe exactly?" Keolah asked. Keolah, unlike Hawthorne, required a different approach, Suzcecoz knew. In her case, an appeal to reason was far more effective, even as Keolah had supplied her own logic behind agreeing to this, knowing her own weaknesses. 

"First matter of business is fixing the rebirth system," Suzy told them. "There's nothing wrong with the idea of it, per se, especially since non-linear rebirth was halted finally, however the main issue is that the same souls keep getting reborn almost as soon as they're dead, and other souls have been floating around out there for millennia waiting for their chance to be reborn. We need to institute a bette order with that, to make sure people who want to be reborn aren't waiting too long, and people aren't reborn before they're ready to be. Hence, I propose that we set up vast Ethereal realms to serve as a sort of 'afterlife' to handle it better." 

"Right, I can do that," Keolah said. "Don't we already have a Heaven and an Abyss, though?" 

"Well, yes, but they aren't exactly used for that purpose, and that wasn't quite what I had in mind," Suzy says. "Another issue is the fact that people remain angels or demons over rebirths. While in some cases that may be warranted, they should have a chance during the afterlife to change that status so that they can start their next life on a clean slate. Hence I'm proposing not Heaven or Hell, but more of a Purgatory, really." 

"What about that business that Jez'kai fellow did over on Devenia?" Hawthorne wondered. "Wouldn't that interfere with that sort of thing?" 

"Yes, and that's a bit problematic, but its effects aren't wide-reaching beyond its own bounds," Suzy replied. "While I don't like what was done there, as it doesn't jive with my vision, I'm not going to directly interfere with what he put into place there. If someone finally gets off their ass and decides to actually do something about it for a change, however, that's another thing." 

"Alright, Purgatory, I can do that," Keolah said. "Let's get to work, then." 

Their surroundings shifted as Keolah took the three of them deeper into the Ethereal Plane and began to form from her mind the realm of Purgatory. It was an immense realm, but being in the Ethereal, it took no real physical space at all. Suzcecoz wasn't picky about the particulars of it at the moment, so she let Keolah run wild with her imagination for the moment as she proceeded to work on rearranging the threads that governed rebirth, effectively rewriting the source code of the universe. 

The realm began to fill with souls as Suzcecoz worked at fishing them out of the Ethereal with wide nets. "The next thing we're going to need," Suzcecoz said as they worked, "is a Grim Reaper." 

"What do we need a Grim Reaper for?" Keolah wondered. In the center of Purgatory, she had formed a large castle to serve as their offices. "Can't you rig it so the souls can find their way here on their own?" 

"Normal souls, yes," Suzy replied. "The purpose of the Grim Reaper, however, is for those who cheat death a bit too frequently. Undead aren't so much of the problem, however, as it is the prevalence of resurrection, soultraps, and other methods used by the Elkandu. You practically can't die in Torn Elkandu anymore because of it." 

"Would that mean resurrection spells are useless then?" Keolah wondered. 

"No," Suzy said. "I don't feel like completely nerfing Soul Mages, and there really aren't many powerful enough to manage that anyway. So here's what I'm going to do. You can be resurrected twice. On the third time, however, resurrection spells, soultraps, reanimation as undead, none of them will work anymore. By that point you'd need to go through normal rebirth and give other people a chance to live." 

"Three strikes you're out," Keolah mused. "That sounds fair. But can't you just code the universe to handle that by itself?" 

"Yes, and I will," Suzy said. "The Grim Reaper is there to act as a moderator, however, and to try to catch anyone cheating by finding some loophole in the system. That, however, will fall to Hawthorne." 

"You want me to do that?" Hawthorne said, grinning brightly at the prospect. 

Suzy gave a nod. "Yes, I don't expect it should be necessary all that often, as few Elkandu are cunning and determined enough to pull something like that off, but if they do, I want you to kick their ass and bring them back here." 

"Right on, I can do that," Hawthorne promised. 

"What about people who have already exceeded their allotted number of lives?" Keolah asked. "Will they be hunted down immediately, or will we wait until they've been killed again?" 

"The latter, I think," Suzy said. "Although in some cases it may be considered warranted by some, it's not generally fair to retroactively apply rules to people like that." 

"So if anyone wants someone to stay dead, they'll have to kill them again," Keolah said. "Gotcha." 

"Also, since ideally souls will be staying here for a couple hundred years instead of a couple minutes, I'll let necromancers and such talk to the spirits here with a proper ritual," Suzy said. "We'll need to put some people in charge of running Purgatory for us as well. Let's get to work. We have a lot to set up, and we're just getting started."


End file.
